Wife of hockey player kicked out of Kazakhstan

Niagara Falls hockey player Kevin Dallman is shown in a 2009 file photo with his two children. Dallman is back in Canada this week after his wife Stacy says she was kicked out of Kazakhstan. (QMI Agency files)

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NIAGARA FALLS, ONT. - The wife of professional hockey player Kevin Dallman says she was kicked out of Kazakhstan for writing blog posts that criticized the government.

Now both Stacy and Kevin Dallman are back in Canada with the former NHLer's future in the Kontinental Hockey League in doubt.

They've spent the past four years in Kazakhstan with Kevin playing for the Barys Astana team in the KHL, a Russia-based equivalent to the NHL. Kevin was a star defenceman for Barys, but Stacy is also well-known in the league.

Her blog, Adventures in Kaziland, was popular among fans of the team. Last December, Stacy spearheaded the Lokomotiv Wives Fund, a fundraising effort to help the widows of players and coaches killed in the Sept. 7 crash of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team airplane.

But Stacy's blog also caused controversy as she delved into what she called "corruption, lies, stealing, greed and selfishness on every level" in the country, from the "government right down to small businesses to your everyday nanny or housekeeper."

A particularly critical post in late March was taken down and, in a subsequent post, Stacy said her husband's agent made her remove it. "Well, the agent is blaming it on the team, the team is blaming it on the owner of the team, the owner of the team is blaming it on the president of the country," she wrote.

The blog posts caught the attention of the media in Kazakhstan and not long after, Stacy says her visa to live in the country of more than 16 million people was withdrawn and she was asked to leave.

The family is back in Niagara Falls. In her most recent post from Sunday, Stacy said the expulsion "only verifies each and every point that I have witnessed over the past four years spent in Astana."

She also said her husband had a contract with Barys for another three years, but that it has now been terminated.